The D800 turns out to be a better camera than the 5D3. It gets an amazing score from DxO, and the Canon fanboys reacts like: "Meh, who cares about DxO?! better camera does not make u better photographer! Canon power!!!1"

But if the 5D3 had the same score or higher, they would all be cheering and shouting: "OMG! Look at that fat DxO score! OUR CAMERA IS WINNER!! Take that, Nikon!"

To design DxOMark Scores, we have made choices about our photographic use cases and their associated image quality requirements (such as resolution, distortion, noise, dynamic range, etc.). It is clear that other photography experts may see things differently. We are very open on this site about the choices we have made so that anyone interested in creating a different scoring system can do so based on their own analysis of our DxOMark Scores and Measurement Database.

They apply arbitrary - and by their own admission, completely subjective - scores to a series of metrics to end up with one number.

The issue is that if you don't give the same priority to the metrics that they do, the scores can be moved substantially.

The simple fact is that DxOMark's conclusions are no more objective than simply looking at the images and picking the one you like best.

I'm still standing by a few points that I've said earlier in other threads:

1.) The D800 seems to be a great "all-rounder" camera, but I must admit that 5DIII with the improved AF-system comes much closer to being one too.

2.) I still think that D800 owners will have to adapt a medium format "workflow" to get the best results from it. Hand-holding is going to be tricky one here, at least to get sharp images at 1:1.

No argument. As I have gone to smaller pixels, I've had to be more careful about my technique to get good images. I won't be surprised to see a lot complaints about it from users who haven't dealt with it before.

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markd61

The numbers are impressive. Fortunately (or unfortunately) no photos ever taken have been good or bad because of lab numbers. Moreover, no one has ever said "That must be a Canon/Nikon/Leica image." by viewing an image and inferring a DxO score.

I like Nikons and I like Canons and I like most cameras. What I really like is a fun camera.

I'm still standing by a few points that I've said earlier in other threads:

1.) The D800 seems to be a great "all-rounder" camera, but I must admit that 5DIII with the improved AF-system comes much closer to being one too.

2.) I still think that D800 owners will have to adapt a medium format "workflow" to get the best results from it. Hand-holding is going to be tricky one here, at least to get sharp images at 1:1.

No argument. As I have gone to smaller pixels, I've had to be more careful about my technique to get good images. I won't be surprised to see a lot complaints about it from users who haven't dealt with it before.

Hand holding won't a problem. It's 36mp but it still has bigger pixels than the 7D.

To design DxOMark Scores, we have made choices about our photographic use cases and their associated image quality requirements (such as resolution, distortion, noise, dynamic range, etc.). It is clear that other photography experts may see things differently. We are very open on this site about the choices we have made so that anyone interested in creating a different scoring system can do so based on their own analysis of our DxOMark Scores and Measurement Database.

They apply arbitrary - and by their own admission, completely subjective - scores to a series of metrics to end up with one number.

The issue is that if you don't give the same priority to the metrics that they do, the scores can be moved substantially.

The simple fact is that DxOMark's conclusions are no more objective than simply looking at the images and picking the one you like best.

Note that the above comment relates to the "DxO score", not how the measurements for DR, etc.

And whilst they do have a subject score and methodology, they do apply the same procedure to all of the cameras that they test.

briansquibb

Thanks, your picture proves my point very nicely. With a D800 and its 14.4 stops DR, there would be no clipped highlights on top of that broken wall bottom left.

Well you haven't looked at the picture closely enough to spot that:

- exposure was 25 sec- the highlights were caused by a full blown spotligh just a few feet away. The histogram does not show clippring- I did nothing to the picture apart from sharpen, resize and convert to jpeg